This application is for core support of a Vision Research Center to be located in the School of Optometry, University of Alabama in Birmingham. The requested funds would provide support personnel, equipment, supplies, and pilot project funds for five research support modules which will be shared by a group of thirteen vision scientists. The support modules are 1 - Center Administration, 2 - Electronics Shop, 3 - Histology/Biochemistry Laboratory, 4 - Animal Care Facility, and 5 -Data Management and Analysis. Eleven of the participants in the center have faculty appointments in the Department of Physiological Optics, School of Optometry. The proposed center will be an administrative subunit of this department. The Center Director and Directors of the Support Modules will be responsible for the administration of the center activities. Most of the research projects will be in neurobiology; specifically, studies of normal and deprived visual development and neural interactions in the retina and visual pathways. Other areas of emphasis are corneal physiology and biochemistry, epidemiology of refractive error, and visual optics. The Vision Research Center has been supported to its present level of development by the School of Optometry: for faculty salaries, support services, equipment and facilities. The substantial opportunity for further development is dependent on the generation of additional resources. The requested core support will provide regeneration of additional resources. The requested core support will provide resources which are not available through other funding mechanisms. These shared facilities are intended to increase the efficiency and productivity of research efforts on individually funded projects, to permit more flexibility in taking new research directions, and to prom te more collaborative research among a group having multidisciplinary approaches to vision science.